


Affogato

by Liara_90



Series: Scoops of Gelato [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crimes & Criminals, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Heterosexual Sex, Love, Love Confessions, Minor Violence, One Shot, Oral Sex, POV First Person, Romance, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 21:03:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6536248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killers and thieves fall in love the same as everyone else. It just took Roman Torchwick a bit longer to come to terms with that. After a mission goes sideways, Roman realizes why he's been putting Neo off for so long. And just what he should do about it.</p><p>The relationship of Neo and Torchwick, come to fruition. While technically a sequel to "The Thief's Joker", this story can be read alone. Gelato fluff and smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Affogato

**Author's Note:**

> _Affogato_. Literally "drowned". Two scoops of gelato topped with a shot of espresso. Sweet and bitter mixed for a heady kick.

I want you to picture a bat.

Not the horrible flying pests, to clarify, but the wooden clubs you used to swing about when you were still a precocious lil' tyke. It has a light brown hue, the natural color of the ash wood it's made of. Black tape is wrapped around the handle with surprising clumsiness. The paint on the barrel is chipped and weathered, and upon close examination I can make out a sliver of a crack beginning to spread, betraying its mortality.

Now imagine that baseball bat being used to beat the living shit out of a dashing Roman Torchwick.

"Oooooow."

Let's be honest, after a certain threshold of pain is crossed, you just stop caring about looking stoic. And I was _way_ over that threshold, if you know what I mean.

"Just how stupid do ya' think we are!?" demanded Arum, droplets of spittle flying from his mouth as his knuckles whitened around the bat's grip. His face was red and drenched in sweat, the exercise of clubbing a helpless rogue apparently taking its toll on him. The harsh light of the bare bulb swinging overhead did nothing for his pasty complexion, nor did the stains of tobacco on his teeth work wonders for his visage. Were it not for the fact that one of my ribs felt like it was floating, I probably would have guffawed at the all-around woeful state of my captor's health.

" _Hahrgh_ ," I grunted out, the laugh losing some of its joviality when it sounded like a blood-soaked wheeze. My teeth were all still in place, but as a betting man I wouldn’t have gone long on their odds.

"How stupid are we?" repeated Arum, putting on a show for the half-dozen petty thugs arranged around my body, presently handcuffed to a chair in an unfinished basement on the wrong side of the tracks.

"Pretty… fucking stupid," I muttered back, once the ringing in my ears subsided. Much like George Washington, when the situation demands it, I cannot tell a lie. It's one of the many traits I share with our late, great President, besides being impeccable in character, unyielding in will, and participatory in secret societies.

And, it appeared increasingly likely, in need of false teeth.

Arum, forgoing the refinement of a wooden club for the intimacy of a balled fist, proceeded to punch me in the face (there's no witty way of saying that), only his general flabbiness keeping my nose from shattering. As it was he still almost toppled the chair I was in straight over. Thanks to the jagged, pulsing pain in the center of my face, I couldn't even take a modicum of _schadenfreude_ at the way Arum himself was wincing.

"And just how stupid does that make you to get caught by us?" asked Arum, panting slightly, as he ran a handkerchief over his bloodied knuckles.

 _Huh_. I hate to admit it, but the Cro-Magnon had a point.

A door at the top of the staircase swung open, and a dozen-odd pairs of feet began descending the creaky-ass stairs. Cheap dress pants and faux leather shoes told me all I needed to know about the new arrivals, though they fully revealed themselves a moment later. I knew them all by reputation and - in a few unfortunate cases - experience. Gorri, Russell, Alpin… mid-tier mobsters with delusions of grandeur, each accompanied by a steroid-junkie cleverly disguised as a bodyguard. They all made pretensions of civility, styling themselves as gentlemen of the underworld, benevolent kings or some equally insipid lie. I cannot in good faith say that any of them was a criminal mastermind, but they'd been in the game long enough to learn that it paid to keep your head down and your fingernails clean. Discretion is the better part of valor, and all that. Call it caution or cowardice, but normally none of them would have been stupid enough to appear at something so blatantly illegal as what was happening in Arum's basement that night. Not without a _very_ good reason, at least.

Like, say, the execution of one Roman Torchwick.

"What are _they_ doing here?" demanded one of Arum's men, his hand coming to a rest at the revolver strapped to his hip. In spite of the evident direness of my situation, it irritated me all out of proportion that he was resting his finger on the trigger, rather than the trigger guard. _Atrocious_ firearm safety; but then again, when it comes to hired muscle you get what you pay for. And Arum wasn't the type to invest heavily in human resources.

"I know we've had our quarrels with them in the past, but we have a mutual enemy before us tonight, and I think it's time to bury the hatchet," said Arum. "Specifically, bury it in Mr. Torchwick's head." _Clever wordplay indeed_ , though the stiffness with which he spoke made it pretty clear that he'd been rehearsing the line in a mirror.

"It's really him?" asked Gorri, staring at me like I was some rotting piece of meat. (Which, in his defense…)

"It's Torchwick alright," confirmed Arum, yanking my head up by my hair. I coughed on the blood pooling in my mouth, but managed to stare Gorri straight in the eye. He'd gained weight since the last time I'd seen him. Specifically him cursing at me from the safety of a speedboat while his dockside warehouses went up in flames. One of my more exciting Date Nights. The arson hadn't been the knock-out blow to his little import-export enterprise we'd been looking for, but the humiliation of it all had forced him to slither out of his usual hidey-hole all the same.

He broke eye contact first, incidentally.

"Caught him trying to buy out my first officer," continued Arum, in that gratingly-slow manner of speaking he had. "Thought he could buy my most loyal men out from under me, was foolish enough to think this land _belonged to him_. My family has been here since this city was _founded_ , and I'd rather give up my _very life_ than let it fall to rats like him. Am I right?!" There was a smattering of agreements from Arum's men, but judging by their reactions this was the kind of thing he typically bitched about after a few too many pints.

Make your joke about a captive audience here.

"That offer, incidentally, still stands." Every head in the room swiveled around to gape at me. The basement was deathly silent. Arum's mouth hung open, stunned. ( _That_ , class, is how you captivate an audience.) "To everyone here, for the record. If you're tired of scrounging for scraps like hobos in a dumpster, I am authorized to make a - time-sensitive - _extremely_ generous offer for your services." _Unnecessarily_ generous, in my humble opinion, but that's not my call to make. "I know how much your enterprises bring in and I'm not exaggerating when I say those revenues can be tripled overnight. This city is going to be under new management pretty soon, and the opportunities for advancement are _at your fingertips_. How'd anyone here like to work for actual _professionals_? I'm talking-"

I was no longer talking, as Arum slapped me across the face with one of those corpulent hands of his. _Christ_ that stings.

"You think you can just wave some cash around and my soldiers will come running to you like whores by the turnpike?" _Yes_ was the obvious answer, for at least a few of the men in the room, but regrettably nobody who was actually worth buying out. The Old Guard were still too stuck in the past, too comfortable with business-as-usual to be able to comprehend the revolution that was taking place right in front of them.

It was tragic, really. Not like Bambi's Mother tragic, or even James Cameron's _Titanic_ tragic, but more… it was just a waste of an opportunity, of potential. Ah well. I felt…. let's say ending-of- _Terminator 2_ levels of sadness.

Someone came running down the staircase, doing his best not to look panicked and utterly failing to. Kid was _maybe_ twenty, and looked like he'd just seen a ghost. He cast a glance my way as he hurried over to Arum, whispering in his ear like he'd probably seen done in a movie. Arum locked onto me as he listened, and despite the blood and bruises I could _not_ keep the grin from my face.

The boss waved the kid off airily, sending the poor sod back up the stairs, looking like he was ready to piss his pants. Shoulda stayed in school, kid.

"So let me guess, your high school-dropout of a sentry just told you he can't see any of his friends in the streets and none of them are answering their phones anymore?" I cannot resist showing off to save my life. _Literally_ , it would seem.

"You’re not going to scarce us, Torchwick," lied Arum, shuffling about uncomfortably as he spoke. "There are dozens of armed men between you and whatever embarrassing excuse of a rescue you're dreaming of."

If I were a smarmy asshole, I'd have said something like ' _ah, so it will be a fair fight, then_ '. But (a) I'm not and (b) it wouldn't be true. Every punk with a gun in the city could have been outside for all the difference it would have made. You can round up every quadriplegic in the nation but the only way one of them is outracing Usain Bolt is if they're fired out of a canon.

Was that too tasteless? I feel kind of bad about it.

"Boss, I think there might be a problem," said Arum's, oh, let's call him a _majordomo_. A guy named Sterling who evidently took his sense of style from Hollywood's idea of the Russian mafia. "I was just talking with Ash and I lost him in the middle of a call. I'd like to pull back everyone we can to form a perimeter around the house." 

You know that scene in _Star Wars_ when the Death Star is under attack and some underling walks up to Peter Cushing and says, ' _We've analyzed their attack, sir, and there is a danger. Should I have your ship standing by?_ ' And he gets laughed at for being the sane one right up until they all get blown to a million pieces? It's basically the same story here.

Regrettably for Sterling, the smart guy in _Star Wars_ ended up just as dead as everyone else. Loyalty is an admirable trait right up until it becomes undeserved.

"I cannot _believe_ you are falling for these mind games of his," shouted Arum, rounding on his subordinate with fury in his eyes. Arum was not exactly the kind of guy receptive to ideas from his lackeys. Like I needed another example of why this city was undergoing a leadership transition. "I am not going to _humiliate_ myself-" (read: there are other mobsters in the room I'm measuring my dick against), "-by chasing after shadows!"

As if one cue, the sounds of a commotion began trickling in from overhead. Raised voices. Footsteps hurrying over wooden floors. Panicked shouts. Glass shattering. Several loud _thuds_ on the floor. A gunshot rang out, then silence. I assure you I was not worried about the outcome.

She was moving _fast_ tonight.

"Okay everyone, in the interests of due diligence, let me just double-check that nobody is taking me up on my offer. Alpin, still a no? Gorri? Russell? Two more 'no's?" Nobody was really listening to me at this point, but at least now I could honestly say I gave them all one last, completely undeserved chance to see the light. "Sterling, hey man, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but you're maybe thirty seconds away from a promotion if you just-"

Sterling raised his gun, some hulking abomination of metal, and for a second I thought he was actually going to shoot me. Tragic sense of honor, that Sterling, and I had done much to offend it. But then he glanced at Arum like the good little lapdog he was, waiting for permission from his master to make the call he knew was right. And in that moment, that heartbeat of a pause, the opportunity was lost.

The blade emerged from the other side of Sterling's wrist, having pierced straight through him like a Quentin Tarantino Passion Play. He didn't pull the trigger as he toppled to the ground, screaming in agony, blood flowing freely from newly-opened veins. Every eye in the room turned to him, to the man of steel who had collapsed before a shot had been fired.

And _then_ the bloodshed began in earnest.

If you've never seen Neo at work - well, good for you, you probably made some smarter life choices than _these_ idiots - but it truly is a sight to just sit back and _behold_. As of late she'd taken a fancy to long, thin blades - personally not my style, but like hell am I telling her how to do her job.

And Neo is one of those most enviable people who _really_ likes what she does.

My favorite little psychopath moved like a pastel tornado through the basement, her blade carving deep lines in other people's flesh as she went. You might think it's insane for someone armed with nothing but swords and daggers to charge into a room overflowing with men and guns, but…. yeah, I admit, it's genuinely insane. But she makes it work for her.

Neo was never where she was supposed to be when someone tried to line up a shot; their bullets ricocheted harmlessly off concrete walls, or occasionally embedded themselves in an ill-positioned thug. She slipped and slid between them, a mix of short steps and acrobatic strides, like the world's most knife-happy ballerina. And if _that_ was a Bolshoi production, I'd watch ballet.

 _Swish-swish-stab,_ I couldn’t resist mouthing out.

* * *

She finished off the last man, a blubbering excuse of a mobster who'd managed to empty his revolver shooting at Neo's afterimage. Yes, normally I'd have taken a page from Hollywood and leave one alive 'as a message to the others'. But the sad truth is: there's nobody left to warn. We'd spent the better part of two months figuring out how to slay the hydra, how to get everybody who was anybody into the same place for one _coup de grace_. At this point, the city was _hers_. You know who I'm talking about. If anybody wanted to do _anything_ \- steal, smuggle, traffic, terminate - it would be by her grace alone. Which was a terrifying prospect, given what I knew she was capable of. And I was just the son of a bitch who'd handed her the keys to the city.

Neo unlocked my handcuffs - using a police key she keeps on her rather than having to rummage through still-wet corpses - and was at my side a moment later. Her hands were moving across my body and for once there was nothing erotic about her touch, about the way she surveyed my injuries with a nurse's thoroughness. Though I think she still has that outfit somewhere, come to mention it…

"I'm fine, Neo," I say, hauling myself to my feet. Of course I stagger and almost topple over right before her, though on the upside she is exactly the right height to steady oneself on. "Cuts and bruises, maybe a broken rib, but nothing to write home about." She scowls at that, continuing to (medically) grope me. The adrenaline's gone and the pain has mostly dulled by this point, now it's the rancid taste of blood in my mouth that bothers me most. "Be a doll and pass me my jacket."

Neo growls, taking umbrage at my mock patronization, but she fetches the white coat all the same. The thugs had stripped me of it, and sent the twenty bucks I'd spent having it dry-cleaned down the drain. My arm is something of a mess and I struggle to put it on, so Neo hops on the chair behind me to help me get my arms through the sleeves. I'd be loathe to expose my vulnerability to anybody else, but with Neo…

She hops off the chair and stands in front of me, arms crossed, tapping her leg expectantly while I make a show of buttoning the jacket. She's _really_ cute when she's impatiently waiting for something. And it's not because she's sweating the cops showing up.

" _Fine_ ," I declare, staring my four-foot-something partner in those brilliantly mismatched eyes of hers. " _Thank you_ for rescuing me, Neo. You saved me back there." Her grin is one part exuberant, one part psychopathic, and completely adorable. She's like that when she's in a good mood.

 _Then_ , of course, is the part Neo was waiting for. The part where she cranes her neck and balances on the balls of her feet, her eyes drifting shut and her lips slowly pushing outward. Expectantly. Because I'm the princess in the tower, and she's the knight who's rescued me. In somebody's _really_ fucked up fairy tale.

Neo's been through a _lot_. She doesn't talk about it much - see what I did there? - but spend enough time with her and you're bound to notice. A lot of people have asked, 'Roman Torchwick, how do you possibly understand that girl?' Alright, that's a lie. I could count on one hand the number of people who know both me and Neo. Cinder - bless her terrifying soul - has never brought it up. The kids do, though, those colorful cretins she keeps around to do her dirty work. I think Em's jealous, pissed that Neo and I are _sympatico_ in a way she'll never be with another soul.

Truth be told, I don't understand how you _don't_ understand Neo. It's like asking someone how they learned their mother tongue, or why you see a butterfly when you look at those ink blobs. I understand Neo because I can't _not_.

I duck down and plant a kiss on her cheek, firm but chaste. She's changed her shampoo again. I pull back and begin making my way up the basement's staircase before she can protest. She doesn't, of course, doesn't even sulk, content with a kiss and nothing else, at least for now. And believe me when I say that while there's nothing I'd rather do than-

We're a couple of blocks away by the time I hear the distant wail of police sirens - response times aren't exactly stellar in this neck of the woods. Our little adventure will almost certainly be written off as another battle in the gang wars, because quite frankly that makes a hell of a lot more sense than what actually happened. Still, I feel kind of bad for whichever forensics geek draws the short straw and has to figure out what the fuck went down in the basement.

On the upside, gang violence in the city is about to grind to a _complete_ halt.

My injuries start taking a toll on me by the time we're across the river, back in a park where drug dealers are more an oddity than a constant. We could have hopped in a taxi or liberated a car anytime, been back at our safehouse long ago, but quite frankly I was in no particular rush. _Yes_ , I was procrastinating, putting off the next step of the job, but Miss Fall isn't paying me by the hour here. So I pull out a cigar and coax a flame to life, taking a seat on a secluded bench, content to people-watch for a few hours.

Neo is beside me a moment later, nestled up in a manner bordering on feline. She normally hates the smell of smoke, looks more irate than a yoga-instructing vegan girlfriend when I light up a cigar, but the injuries dotting my body appear to have brought out the protective side of her.

"Before my life debt gets any deeper with you, let me just reiterate that _The Plan_ called for me to be captured," I began, verbalizing an argument I'd been drafting in my head for some time now. Neo says nothing (obviously), and her fingers still haven't stopped idly stroking my thigh. I think she's trying to trace the contour of a bruise by how badly I wince when she pushes. "They get their hands on Roman Torchwick, everybody gathers 'round the guillotine, and then you put those corporate-downsizing skills of yours to work."

Neo rolls her head back, staring up at me, eyebrows raised. Not quizzically, not even skeptically, but in an expression of supreme disbelief. She has a way of a calling me out on my bullshit. So I take another decadent puff, careful to keep the smoke as far away from her face as possible, and let out a heavy sigh.

"Okay, so, _maybe_ there was a bit of improvisation," I concede. "But we're professionals, Neo, and that's just part of the job." That finger of hers jabs a little deeper into the bruise, forcing me to stifle a whimper of pain. "Look, it was a perfectly reasonable plan. Sterling could have run the show a hell of a lot better than Arum, and we knew he was getting annoyed at how Arum kept fucking things up for his men."

It was a _good plan_ , dammit, and like hell am I going to take shit for how it unfolded. "So I walk up to the man and say, 'hey Sterl, imagine the street cred you'd get if your posse catches me, restoring the honor of your men that Arum has given up on. You force the old coot into retirement, get the cushy corner office for yourself, and best of all, never have to worry about Arum burning through men like toilet paper on Taco Tuesday." I glanced down at Neo. "Okay, so I'm paraphrasing-" admittedly less than I probably should have been "-but there was no reason that he shouldn't have seen that the Price Was Right. In exchange for getting himself the C-Suite job, Sterling calls a meeting of the city's ne'er-do-wells, ostensibly to figure out just what the hell to do me. Then we pull an Oliverotto Euffreducci on them, and the only dog in town is now on Cinder's tight leash." My witty historical references go right over Neo's head. As do most things. "What I'm trying to say is, how the hell could I have guessed that he'd pass up the chance to be the biggest dog in town - and with a rather nice doghouse I might add - because he likes playing with the mutts?"

Neo is still annoyed at me, the small scowl on her brow completely unmistakable. Again, it looks incredibly cute on her, but it's not the kind of thing I can bear to watch. So I wrap my arms around her and draw her close. "Listen, Neo, I _promise_ that I enjoy getting the shit kicked out of me even less than you do looking at the results." She's practically cradled in my arms now, drifting towards my lap. "Forgive me, please?"

She scowls furiously, though it's a last-ditch effort to remain pissed, and she can’t keep it up for very long. So she burrows into me, clutching at whatever she can, in that never-letting-go kind of way. That's the Neo I fell in love with.

She might be a psychopath, but she's _my_ psychopath.

Maybe an hour later we begin strolling through the park. It's late enough that nobody looks twice at the respectable gentleman and the eye-candy on his arm, even if Neo didn't _quite_ manage to wipe the blood completely off my face. She's no longer fuming about the situation I got myself into, which is a positive development, but I'm still kind of hoping some punk with a knife tries to mug us. She could use cheering up.

"Next time," I promise, "we'll get one of the kids to be the bait." Neo smiles at that. She has no real grudge against Cinder's, hm, ' _in-house specialists_ ', but I think she's taken my dislike of them to heart. Word of advice - never work with animals or children. I'm in a better mood after picturing Merc getting kneecapped in the line of duty, and Neo seems to shake her melancholy in turn. So we drift contently through this sad excuse of a park, Neo practically wrapped around my arm. For a few fleeting moments, we look like a perfectly normal couple on a date. A normal date involving no homicide whatsoever.

We're on a night bus a few minutes later, taking up a spot near the back for the long ride downtown. I hate busses. Ever looked inside a bus and thought - 'wow, this _really_ brings out the best humanity has to offer'? Neither has anybody else.

I'm up against the window near the back of the bus, Neo blocking the aisle. A trap, yes, but one I'm too tired to fight. She waits all of two stops before stealing a kiss, two stops more before she's trying to steal third base. The desire is written across her face, adrenaline and excitement mixed with worry and protectiveness to concoct some horribly potent aphrodisiac.

I'm not going to pretend our relationship is anything close to normal. But Neo wants me, and I'd be lying if I said I don't _really_ want her. Physically, she's like no woman I've ever seen, beautiful and adorable and graceful and imposing all at the same time. Her sense of style makes _me_ jealous, and I assure you that that is no small feet. But when it comes to who she _is_ , what's going on in that head of hers… it's wrong to say that she's like nothing I've ever seen. More like… nothing I ever believed was possible. Still don't, not really.

There are few things in my life that I can't afford to fuck up - few things in my life that I haven't _already_ fucked up, let's be honest - but my relationship with Neo is one of them. She's a masterpiece, a Wonder of the World, perfection in petite form. I'd like nothing more than to surrender to her entreaties, to ride the hormonal waves of carnal lust. But then…

She's properly straddling me now, one knee on either side of my hips while she wraps her arms around my neck, jettisoning any pretense of subtly. My hands come to a rest on her hips, moving slightly as she gyrates over my pelvis. Her kisses are soft and playful, but there's a passion behind them, a steely resolve. My hat falls somewhere as she begins running her fingers through my hair, just enough grip to tilt my head to and fro as she likes. I return her kisses whenever her lips meet mine, but am otherwise content to sit back, letting her wash over me like waves lapping on a sandy beach.

I'd stopped caring about the disapproving glances being shot our way by the time Neo was ready to insist on more. Her hands guiding mine farther south, brushing over her thighs until they were positioned between them. Neo lets out a contented _hmm_ at the pressure of my hands between her legs, her own body rhythmically sliding against mine, harder and harder. The erection in my pants deprived me of higher reasoning skills, the way she coaxes it to life. My breaths are deeper and increasingly erratic, mumbled words and a gaping mouth Neo's confirmation that she was degrading my defenses.

I find her eyes locked with mine, and those bi-colored orbs say it all, the curiosity and perplexion practically etched into them. Why _don't_ I give in? Why not let Neo give me the time of my life without having to fork over so much as dinner and a movie? It's bothered her since the first time I turned her down, my dick practically in her mouth by the time I backed out. Hell, it's bothered _me_. I've romanced, seduced or hired so many women over the years it's a bloody miracle I have a clean bill of health. I've slept with girls for fun, for work, girls who needed cash or drugs or a bed for the night. I never really cared what they thought in the morning, if they'd left by the time I woke up or vice versa.

So why not Neo? I've slept with people I've worked with before, so let's not pretend it's a professionalism thing. She's of age, consenting, not doing it for drugs or money or shelter. She _wants_ to do it with me, has made that explicitly clear again and again and again. She knows what I do, who I am. If I do something she doesn't like, if she's left in tears at the end of the day, it's not like she can plead ignorance. She wouldn't be the first girl I've taken in a pique of arousal and left an utter wreck the next week. So why not have some fun?

Neo's eyes ask the question and demand the answer.

And I finally have it.

"Because I love you, Neo."

She's speechless, and I mean that in every sense of the word. Her eyes widen, her mouth opens, her fingers tighten around the collar of my jacket. We're so close that I can feel each of her shallow breaths on my skin. There's no doubt on her face, no disbelief. I don't think she's really even surprised. It's not like I've ever been able to hide anything from that girl. She's feeling something more complicated, more like…

Relief. Catharsis, maybe, or like the feeling of ease you get when you admit some secret. I imagine that's how the whole Confession thing got so popular. Neo exhales through her noses and it's a shuddering snort, the kind you get when you put the barbell back on its rest, or in the senseless moments after climaxing. There was only one real barrier between us, this weird alien _thing_ I didn't know how to explain or deal with except by putting it off. I'm hopelessly, madly in love with Neo, and I can no longer pretend there's anything to be gained by denying it.

Neo looks at me, wanting so desperately to say the words back. Her lips go through the motions a half-dozen times, never _quite_ mouthing the words. Her fingers rustle about my lapel like it's something unfamiliar that she doesn't know how to handle. Her knees bounce nervously, hell, her whole body is practically quivering. She stares up at me, eyes wide, and there's something desperate in that look, a pleading _need_ to reciprocate…

"I know."

Her smile can only be described as _radiant_ , so piercing and pure. Her kisses come at me like bullets now, imprecise and inarticulate but making their points at a dozen spots on my face. I try bringing her in for a kiss but her mouth is elsewhere, my neck and my jaw and my ear. She finally comes back to my mouth and this time I see the _fire_ in her eyes, her fingers gripping my hair like I'm some wild animal. She's passionate to the point of roughness, but I've never loved Neo more than when she loses herself in the moment.

I know that she loves me. I don't know when she started to, I don't know how she fell in love, and I certainly don't know _why_. And somehow I doubt she's going to be forthcoming anytime soon. Some things you just have to accept, or you'll drive yourself crazy. But sometimes you don't need to have _all_ the answers. Sometimes you just need to answer exactly one question.

She loves me, I love her, and the half-dozen remaining occupants on the bus were becoming intimately aware of that. Only the last vestiges of my higher reasoning skills kept them from learning _exactly_ how in love we are.

"As much as I like the kinkiness of having sex on a bus," I managed to murmur, as it became increasingly clear that Neo was more than willing to do exactly that, "I think I have a way of doing one better."

* * *

In my defense, if Cinder didn't want us using her hotel room, she should have made the damn reservation herself.

Though calling it a 'room' - while technically correctly - is selling it somewhat short, like a Girl Scout version of Neo would. The Imperial Suite is more like an apartment, and not a particularly small one, either. The furnishings are expensive but the décor remarkably understated, something I can actually appreciate. You spend your days surrounded by people desperate to flaunt every shiny penny they've got and you learn to enjoy the subtler displays. There's a jacuzzi bathtub and a king-size bed, both of which offer tantalizing possibilities, though for the moment Neo is distracted by a fruit basket sent up by the concierge. Skipping dinner is _murder_ for a girl with her metabolism.

I stroll over to a giant, floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city. It isn't hard to imagine Cinder in my place, maybe idly sipping a glass of red in that aristocratic way of hers. I imagine she's pleased with what she sees, everything from the docks to the suburbs now flying her banner. There are no signs of any personal affects of hers about the hotel room, disappointing but not exactly surprising.

Neo leaps at me from behind, catching me by surprise in a way that literally only she can. I let her wrangle me back to the almost comically-oversized bed, which we collapse onto as one. She's beneath me, unquestionably not by fluke, though for a moment I can't help but laugh at how she's practically enveloped by the think blankets and sheets as I depress the mattress further. She lets out a wordless giggle as I scoop her up in a grapple. For a minute or two we do absolutely nothing at all, content to revel in the decadence of thousand thread-count sheets.

That contentment fades when Neo returns her attention to the bulge between my legs, mischievously grinning as I let out a grunt of _need_. We're undressing a moment later, or rather, Neo is undressing me, my injuries rendering me too slow to be left to my own devices, apparently. My skin's discolored at the site of a dozen welts and bruises, but they don't faze Neo in the slightest. She forces me out of everything but my underwear, her fingers sliding inside the elastic band of the boxer briefs, teasing at what's to come.

With a thrust of her arms Neo pushes herself to the headboard, leaving the length of the bed between us. There's a predatory glint in her eye as she tosses her top off, pleased with the way the Victoria's Secret bra beneath keeps me in her thrall. Without thinking I'm on my hands and knees, crawling across the mattress to her while she bites her lower lip. She extends her legs, an invitation I am all-too-willing to accept, tugging her pants off to reveal her deadliest weapons. Those legs are capable of doing pretty much anything. I might be covered in a hundred wounds, but a naked girl is one hell of an anesthetic.

A moment later her thumb hooks the band of her panties, the wordless gesture my next cue. I wanted to be patient, to be calm and suave, to give Neo the kind of performance only a _paramour_ of Roman Torchwick's caliber could deliver. I'd take my time removing them, or so I thought, all soft strokes and deliberate touches. But before I could blink my fingers were tugging at her undergarments, any show of seduction cut short by my own incessant hormones. With Neo I can never pretend to be anyone else. With Neo, I'm forced to be….me.

Neo's legs wrap around my neck in a move that could only be described as pornographic, my heart pounding maddeningly as she draws me in. Her bra is now hanging over a distant armchair, discarded without pretense. This isn't the first time I've seen her naked - hell when I _met_ her she was naked - but it's a sight to behold all the same. There's not a fault on that girl's body, the harmonious blending of a ballerina and a gymnast's physique. But the scars are still there, if you know where to look, little white lines from a thousand stories I'll never know. I trace a few of them I know from memory, my finger running over her thigh where the cuts must have run like ribbons. She's unmoving as I find the slight elevations in her skin, eyes half-lidded, as if recalling faded memories. I don't know what's going on in that cipher of her mind, but I think she likes that somebody else knows the scars are there. At least, I like to believe that she likes it.

As with so many things with Neo, I'll have to be content with never knowing.

Neo's legs and hips telegraph that the moment has passed, and that she's still riled up and in need of relief. My head is at the apex of her thighs a moment later, inhaling her scent, watching the way she quivers as my breaths falls on her skin. You may have wondered if the carpet matches the drapes…

…And you'll have to keep wondering. Some secrets are just too good to share.

My tongue makes its first, tentative brushes, pressing against her skin and eliciting stifled gasps in return. Every girl has her preferences, a suite of sensitivities and desires that should _always_ be attended to, and I'm dying to find out Neo's. Only problem is the girl is so flush with anticipation that she's not exactly giving me time to strategize.

Neo _pushes_ again, thrusting herself into me with so much force that I'm now flat on my back, 'trapped' between her knees. I have unfettered access from this position and that's not the kind of opportunity you let pass you by. My tongue goes to work tracing her folds, my hands running over her thighs. Neo's receptive, to say the least, any lingering concerns about my injuries apparently vanished as she grabs handfuls of hair, fingers tightening in wordless desire.

She repositions herself a moment later, release still not achieved but with a more pressing need taking over. I could tell from the way she was shaking that I needed half a minute at most to bring her over the edge, but Neo evidently had no intention of making things that easy for me. Her hands, so impossibly delicate, take mine and yank me upright, tugging and pulling until I'm seated at the edge of the bed. With that playfully evil grin of hers she slides off, coming to a rest on her knees at my feet. She peers up at me, wide-eyed, as if innocently inquiring over what was making dear Roman Torchwick pant in anticipation. She sways back and forth slightly, an impossibly coy bit of teasing, before her fingers hook around my underwear and leave me _completely_ open to her.

She hardly needs to coax an erection out of me, my member hard and solid in her hands. She could have made me ask, made me promise, made me _beg_ , as her fingers traced slow but deliberate lines along pulsing veins. But Neo wasn't that kind of person, the kind to demand a _quid pro quo_ for each act of pleasure. The only reason Neo does _anything_ is because she wants to, because like hell are you going to make her. And I gotta tell you, that's a hell of a thing to know when a girl puts her lips around your dick.

Neo knows what she's doing, no questions asked. Her lips and her tongue and her fingers - every part of her moves with that graceful deliberation, finding exactly the right sensations to elicit and extend. She makes eye contact intermittently, gauging the pleasure on my face, but is just as content to lose herself in the moment. A free hand sometimes makes its way between her thighs, keeping herself as hot as I am. She slides her mouth off once or twice, her hand pumping to keep me on the edge of release, before she frantically picks up the pace, taking practically the entirety of my length in her mouth in a mad dash to the cliff's edge.

Some distant part of my mind wants me to pull back, to avoid blowing my load in her mouth on our first real night together, as that might seem a tad presumptive. But Neo is having none of it, her hands keeping me welded in place as the bob of her head and the strokes of her tongue overwhelm me completely…

When I'm finally able to sit upright again there's a look of pure satisfaction staring back at me. Neo's smile can only be described as triumphant, having finally broken down the last barriers keeping me from giving in to her completely. She's on top of me a moment later, and there's absolutely no denying that I am _hers_ now.

We resume are previous position - her against the headboard, me between her legs - though this time she doesn't keep me physically pinned in place. I can vaguely hear her unscrewing a bottle of Coke I'd left out on the nightstand - if Cinder's paying for a mini-bar then I'm damn well going to make the most of it - presumably washing the worst of my taste out. She'd taken it all in her mouth, as far as I could tell, swallowing it without a word of complaint. The girl really does rise above the call of duty. I do my utmost to reciprocate, and I can't say it's a chore.

But for the second time that evening Neo interrupts my cunnilingus, quite apparently wanting something a little _firmer_ to bring her to the point of ecstasy. It hadn't taken long to revive my member, soon fully erect and pulsing in anticipation once again. The small pharmacy of medicine Neo takes to keep her conditions in check did a very good job of preventing ovulation, and she'd once literally dragged me into a clinic to put my supposed clean bill of health to the test. Suffice it to say neither of us are dumb enough to make stupid mistakes in the bedroom. Which was good, because I wasn't in the habit of bringing condoms to gang meetings.

Neo was in the mood for cowgirl style and I had no reason to object, flat on my back and staring up at a beautiful nude form. Horny as she was she took a moment to appreciate the muscles displayed beneath her, the way her finger lovingly traced my abs and pecs the only real motivation I had to work-out in the first place. She lowers herself onto me none-too-gently, the soft gyrations of her hips all the coaxing I needed. Her eyes were shut but she found my hands all the same, pressing them against her breasts as she sunk lower and lower. We found a wordless rhythm, as we did with all things, _pushing_ at just the right moments, grabbing and squeezing with each wave of heat. Her faced scrunched up and contorted, hovering on that edge between pleasure and pain, her body sliding up and down with growing passion.

It was at that moment that I moved, wanting, no _needing_ to deliver that orgasm myself. She was building herself up for a _crescendo_ , carefully and methodically, but I had no intention of making her do all the work, not when the total release of control is what gets you the greatest pleasure.

At the risk of sounding uncouth it was then that I started to _fuck_ Neo, pushing with my hips, my hands locking her in place as I pumped in and out. I want her, I want her _so badly_ , and that maddening need fuelled a violent outburst, an all-enveloping heat that brings me into her and her onto me.

I hear the inarticulate noises Neo makes as she climaxes, though I doubt she'll remember the wordless gasps in the morning. Her whole body shudders as the orgasm courses through her like a double shot of tequila, her nails dug so deep into my skin they're probably adding to my litany of injuries. Hairs fall over my face as she collapses in complete exhaustion, but I've got no desire to brush them away. I can feel her whole body resting atop me, sticky with sweat, the weight of her chest pressing against mine with each deep, unthinking breath.

We're stuck together for god knows how long, intertwined in the most intimate way imaginable. I'd have gotten bored and uncomfortable a longtime ago with any other girl, but as I've made abundantly clear, Neo is no other girl.

…

I think she's fallen asleep.

She's curled up against me, exhausted and satisfied and a dozen other forms of content, and it's hard not to feel like everything's right in the world. I've long stopped trying to understand Neo, to reconcile the girl sleeping soundly in my bed with the one who dances with knives and paints with blood. Sometimes you don't get the answer to every question, because that's just the nature of the game.

You're rambling like an angsty teen again, Christ, get a grip Roman. I slide out of bed as gingerly as I can and make my way to the minibar. There're a bunch of those little bottles of alcohol but nothing actually worth drinking. Honestly, there's a four-star restaurant in the lobby that would probably be cheaper, too.

By the time I close the fridge door - in a mix of disappoint and disgust - Neo's awake, absent-mindedly drifting about the hotel suite without a stitch of clothing on her. At least, not until she finds my hat, contentedly flipping it onto her head.

I laugh. "I'm ordering room service," I call out, grabbing a leather-bound menu from a nearby desk. "Twenty bucks if you answer the door wearing just that."

Neo scowls that beautiful scowl of hers, though her expression is as malicious as my intent was. She tosses the hat square at my face, and by the time I bat it aside she's atop me once more, all silken touches and sickly-sweet kisses.

"Come on," I murmur, as she begins to stake her claim once more. "I'll order some food, we can grab a shower, then wrap up our business with the lady in red." Neo nods in faint agreement, though I can tell she heard only one of those three activities. I give her a playful smack on the ass, and the glare she flashes doesn't reach her eyes.

Neo strolls - _saunters_ is probably a better word - into the bathroom, an alabaster ass on full display. I listen carefully to the patter of her soft footsteps on the marble floor, before a torrent of water from the showerhead envelops her.

I return to the menu but for a moment do absolutely nothing, just struggling to string one thought to the next. Nothing's changed, that's what's weirding me out. I'm still Roman, she's still Neo, we're both still thieves and killers working for people worse than either of us. It's not like I didn't love her before, no, or that our lives are going to be radically different now. We already eat, sleep, work and play together. If she's out of my line of sight for more than an hour a day I know something unusual is happening. We're always together. It's just that we're now together…. _together_?

Christ that sounds dumb.

I shake my head and order two of the house specials. Plenty of time for a quicky in the shower before room service arrives. I'm still putting off calling Cinder, but she's spent months waiting for this coup, another half-hour isn't going to kill her.

Neo doesn't turn around when I enter the stall behind her, though her stance makes it pretty clear what she wants me to do. The water is already steaming by the time I step under, the glass fogged to opacity before my hands find hers again. She waits to feel my skin on hers before rolling her head back to look at me, mismatched eyes shimmering as the water cascades over her. She grins.

Both the bellhop and Ms. Fall ended up waiting a lot longer than either would have liked.

**Author's Note:**

> First work I've finished in a damn long time, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Seriously, even a one-sentence comment iterating your enjoyment is worth a lot to me.
> 
> The idea for titling things after drinks was blatantly stolen from DinasEmrys' Premium Well Redux. I'd suggest you go check it out, but statistically, you probably already have. And yes, I realize "Affogato" - a mix of gelato and coffee - should properly refer to the shipping of Neo + Roman and the entirety of Team CFVY. Apologies in advance for messing up the tags.
> 
> Okay, serious author-y rant. So this is a fic I've been kicking around for a while. According to my own records I wrote most of this back in January, before Pyrrha's death at the end of Volume III put a damper on my RWBY writings. But I figured it was stupid to write all the complicated 'plot' parts of a smut fic and then leave the erotica unfinished. Only way to get better is with practice, right?
> 
> Anyways, I think it's the first thing I've written in first-person, which I've been extraordinarily recalcitrant about, so feedback on Torchwick's "voice" would be great. I know I slipped between past and present tenses a few times, a sin I indulged in to make the stream-of-consciousness flow better. Unlike the prequel to this work I wrote Neo without any explicit dialogue…. did it work? Trying to convey the complexities of a mute girl is a bloody nightmare. But yeah, feedback: tone, atmosphere, flow, smut quality…. any comments are always welcome. Unlike it's predecessor, I'm not sure if this can fairly be dubbed "noir". There's no real reason this had to be set in a Modern AU instead of pre-canon Remnant, (or the ambiguous either/or of "The Thief's Joker") but I think I wanted to make a few too many pop culture references this time around. Apologies if that detracted it all.
> 
> Roman's lines on the bus ("I love you" and "I know") were subconsciously appropriated from Empire Strikes Back. I swear I didn't intend that when I was writing it.
> 
> Thanks again for reading, and above all, for commenting!


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